Giving entrepreneurs a chance to run a restaurant rent-free

SINGAPORE’S food and beverage (F&B) industry is notoriously competitive, with thin margins and high turnover rates. New incubator Ghostwriter hopes to minimise the risk of failure by giving budding and veteran entrepreneurs a rent-free opportunity to test-bed ideas.

“I thought it was about time that we gave back to the F&B community, which has had a hard few years,” founder Jay Gray told The Business Times. He is the chief executive of the Sago House group, which owns bars Sago House and Low Tide, and restaurant Underdog Inn.

Located on the second floor of a Club Street shophouse, above Low Tide, Ghostwriter has its own kitchen, bar, tables and seats. It can take up to 10 seated guests or 15 standing ones.

The aim of Ghostwriter is to lower the barriers to entry for F&B entrepreneurs, said the founder. It hopes to reach out to existing industry players such as chefs or bartenders who are thinking of opening their own business.

Gray said: “Business ownership requires a whole different set of skills that I think most young entrepreneurs are not ready for. It can be really daunting for people who have good ideas, but maybe never had the opportunity to learn business, because most of us in this industry are self-educated.”

It was in mid-2022 that he recognised the potential of the space as an incubator. Then, the second floor was used by Sago House group’s executive chef Pete Smit to trial a dinner concept named Dirty Supper. It proved to be such a hit that Dirty Supper moved out after six months to find a permanent location.

Rather than having the unoccupied space go to waste, the founder turned it into an F&B incubator. And so Ghostwriter was born.

In Gray’s view, a key challenge for independent F&B operators is finding an affordable space. “Especially with the property market as it is, you get hit with these S$8,000-a-month spaces that come with a two-month deposit and start-up costs.”

It is why Ghostwriter does not charge rent, which is absorbed by Gray’s team. Residents can order ingredients through Gray’s suppliers and tap manpower from the Sago House group. These costs are then included in a profit-and-loss assessment at the end of the residency.

“This gives the resident the opportunity to assess and evaluate the fiscal viability of the business in the long-term,” he said. Ghostwriter takes a 30 per cent cut of the pop-up’s gross sales, and net profits go to the entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs also receive mentoring from Gray in areas such as putting together business plans, on top of marketing support for their concept.

“We are trying to promote the passion behind it, more than the financials. But a business has to be profitable. I want these people to go on to open these businesses successfully, not be a flash in the pan,” he said.

In January, Ghostwriter hosted its first pop-up: Guerilla, which served pan-Asian cuisine and creative cocktails. It was a collaboration between Son Pham, the owner of Sonny’s Pizza, and June Baek, a bartender.

Ghostwriter is hosting its second pop-up, until Feb 27. Bar-and-grill concept Quality Melts by owner and chef Edwin Tan, which serves “chopped cheese” sandwiches and sodas, is an expansion of Tan’s hawker stall in Cantonment Road.

Best for certain F&B concepts

Even as an industry veteran, Pham found Ghostwriter useful in letting him bypass “the growing pains” of starting a restaurant, as there was already back-end infrastructure in place, such as reservation and point-of-sales systems.

Pham said: “The benefit was being able to test out the concept and get very quick feedback and results. We moved in, filled up the space with whatever we needed, and proceeded to cook and make drinks right away.”

Guerilla, which ended its run on Jan 29, had a profit margin of between 30 and 40 per cent.

For Quality Melts’ Tan, Ghostwriter was a chance to test if his restaurant concept could thrive in a more central, accessible location. “It’s been full house from the first day (of the pop-up), which has given me a confidence boost. We’ve attracted some investors in the last week, too,” he said.

He estimates that profits from the one-month run at Ghostwriter will be double or triple that of a regular month at his hawker stall. He plans to find a new permanent space for Quality Melts and hopes to franchise the business someday.

But not all F&B concepts are suitable for Ghostwriter; the space’s facilities limit the type and extent of cooking that can be carried out. For instance, it has neither an open-fire grill nor an exhaust hood.

Instead, the kitchen has two induction stoves, a small oven, a Thermomix multi-cooker, two sous vide machines and a Pacojet processor. Concepts involving low-temperature or modernist cooking would therefore work best, said Gray.

He plans for Ghostwriter’s concept to change monthly. He has received 12 proposals, with six concepts locked in to fill the space until August. The next one in March will be by Nost, a private-dining company specialising in experimental pop-up concepts.

The incubator has even generated overseas interest from The Soul Company, a travelling F&B pop-up collective from India that hopes to help some of its F&B players enter Singapore.

Other F&B incubators in Singapore include Magic Square at Portsdown Road, which is for chefs; there is also Baker X in Orchard Central, an initiative by Far East Organization that offers home-based bakers a shot at operating a cafe.

Earlier this month, Magic Square announced that it would be shutting its doors in April. It was reported in the news that founder Tan Ken Loon cited fatigue and the difficulty in finding new talents as factors for the closure.

The news does not faze Gray. Commenting on Ghostwriter’s prospects, he said: “We don’t have any grand aspirations to make this a bigger project than it is; we’re happy with the size of it now. Realistically, it’s a chance to keep eyeballs on new and upcoming talent.”